Tag Archives: coach

In episode 26, I talk with Fred Turoff, head coach of men’s gymnastics at Temple University, one of 16 D1 college gymnastics programs. He is in the US Gymnastics Hall of Fame as a coach. He is now coaching his 38th season, leading the team to be conference champions 18 of those years. We talk about the recent announcement that Temple will be eliminating 7 sports in 2014, men’s gymnastics being one of them. We talk about the unfortunate way in which the decision was made (behind closed doors, with no communication with the coaches) and announced (right before finals week). We also talk about gymnastics in general, the six events of men’s gymnastics, training methods, mindset, and much more. Please sign the petition and find other ways to help at templegymnastics.com.

Video Excerpt

Quotes

Fred talked at length about the various ways in which his program is a success regionally, financially, academically, and in giving to the community. Here’s a short random excerpt:

“Nobody engaged me as a coach and said ‘Look I have this financial problem, what can we do to help this?’ In terms of finances. When you look at the number of kids that are coming here for gymnastics and paying their own way. The total is more than the cost of my program. We pay for ourselves and we raise money. In terms of facility, although my facility here is not an ideal one when you compare it to the best schools, but we’ve been successful and we make do with what we have. According to the previous athletic director, we’ve been funded to compete well regionally. I think 18 of 37 conference championships is competing very well regionally.”